No End In Sight
Flames burned wine-soaked wood to ashes in the light of early dawn, yet not one of us was sleeping. Perhaps the gods intended it all to end in flames, just as it began in flames-- those of the illicit lust of Paris for another's wife, that Helen hell-to-men. Yet the will of the gods was as murky as a river in flood to all of us who still lived to watch the funeral fires of the hope of the Argives smolder in the predawn light. The great Achilles, swift-footed son of Peleus, loved by the gods, is dead. As clear as our purpose was to us in the beginning, to win glory for Achilles as his fierce Myrmidons, and to win the return of Helen to Menelaus with the fall of Troy, so now we, the fiercest of the Argives, cannot see now what we must do.
As we look back, seeing memories of the golden Achilles in the glowing embers of his pyre, perhaps we can all say we saw his end coming. Certainly we knew he cared not about living after ..his death. And for him who cares not about living, the gods have little will to spare his life, and usually send him quickly to Hades' land. Achilles' actions shocked even us, Achilles' troop of elite, when Patroclus died. Our leader lived only for the death of Hector; it was as if he had become a god of pain and death himself. He spared no one, not even those he had ransomed before, risking the ire of the gods to smash the brains of those who grasped his knees in supplication. Even the river Scamander on the Trojan plain was choked with the blood of those Peleus' son slew, the god of the flowing water crying out in horror at the gore.
With the death of Patroclus began the death of Achilles. Yet it cannot be explained by only the fact of one friend's death, can it? All of us, all of those who fought at Troy, knew death firsthand. We'd all seen friends go down crying out for kin, and all of us had slain men in blood with our spears or our swords and seen them scream in pain. We Myrmidons were the wolves of Achilles, and we knew death best. We hungered for battle and blood, for the spoils of war. Every day we took the field knowing that day might be our day to die. Yet we gloried in that. Weren't we the best of the Argives, brought by Achilles the great in fifty black ships from Pythia's shores? The goddess' son chose us, we'd exult to each other amid bowls of mixed wine around the night's campfires. We got the best of the spoils, slew the most of the enemy, we knew it, and we thirsted for more. When Achilles was slighted by Agamemnon, he raged against the king for days, refusing to join battle again until our own ships burned at Trojan hands. This was for us perhaps the only time our loyalties to the son of the sea goddess were tested. There was hardly a man among us who didn't murmur bitterly around the fires that perhaps Thetis nursed her son on gall, that he was so hard-hearted as to keep his soldiers 'round the fires and away from the glory that we knew was surely our right. Yet Achilles would not be moved by our mutterings. Only the greathearted Patroclus was able to sway him toward pity with his tears.
Patroclus was different from the rest from the beginning. Brought up with Achilles from childhood, his heart was less on the fighting than on the fighters. We revered him for his kind heart, for he made his rounds through the tents of the wounded at the end of each day's fighting. He'd offer a word of comfort, a warm story to lift the heart, and a steady hand to help the healer as they pressed bandages to a wound to staunch the flow of black blood. Perhaps we revered his kind heart because we couldn't understand it. How could someone remain so kind after all those years of fighting? We didn't know. We bragged around the fires about how many we'd slain that day, the spoils that the heroes had brought in to camp, and tried not to become too close to those we sat next to, for who knew who would be the next to die? Patroclus was different. He balanced our glorious leader perfectly, as the steady hand on the reins of a fractious young colt. His compassion was such that he couldn't bear to watch fellow Argives die at Hector's hand by the black ships, and, dauntlessly he went into battle dressed in Achilles' own armor to hold the Trojans off the ships in their rampage. His compassion in the camp was his greatest feature, yet not a one could say he ever shied from battle. Indeed, donning Achilles' armor seemed to give him a skill and ferocity approaching that of Achilles, and when he died, we mourned him more than we would any other.
Yet perhaps the beginning of Achilles' death goes back farther than the death of Patroclus. It was whispered among the rank and file that in addition to being the son of a deathless goddess, Achilles alone among mortal men had the chance to choose when his thread would be cut by the three Fates, and his soul sent down to Queen Persephone's dark realm. Some said he'd been offered two choices: one, to live a long and happy life, yet live unknown and die an unsung old man; the other, to live a short life, yet be known forever for his bravery and glory in battle. To those who saw his fury at Troy, it was obvious which path he'd chosen, if indeed he had been offered the choice at all. Truly, it seems, no one could support such fury inside their body as showed Achilles, and still live. His rage was so great it daunted even those on his own side, and he seemed almost a thing inhuman, covered in the gore of those he'd slain.
And Hector, how Achilles' raged for his death. When he finally closed the distance between them and prepared for their fight, even great Hector's courage failed him and he fled. Yet Achilles chased him three times round the walls of Ilium, with a speed and stamina almost immortal. Indeed it seemed as if each of the pair had one of the deathless gods at their heels, so fast did they sprint around the city of Priam. So stunned was the entire army by the display of their prowess, that they drew back to watch as Achilles battled Hector and struck the hero down, in their awe forgetting the spoils of those already killed. When the great breaker of horses fell, all crowded around to stab his body, as if we could not believe he was dead. All of us exulted in his downfall, bragging that he didn't look like much with his body face down in the dirt and his armor in the hands of Achilles. Yet still Achilles' rage lingered, and even when the man he had so hated was dead, he swore he would not forget Patroclus' death. For twelve days he dragged Hector's body behind his chariot, around and around his dear friend's funeral pyre, the once great hero naked in the dust behind Achilles' chariot wheels. No entreaties would move him, not even the horror of his own troops, stunned by his brutality, and when Priam came to beg a ransom for his son's body, there were even some of us who thought he'd strike the old man down as well, and have his revenge on the entire line of Ilium.
Perhaps the ghost of greathearted Patroclus was the one who finally persuaded him to listen to a broken man's pleas, released by some god from the underworld to spirit his way to Achilles' side once more. Indeed Priam must have been spirited into Achilles' tent by a deathless god, for none saw the old king enter or leave our camp. Those who were inside the tent of our leader say that Achilles' was so moved by old Priam's entreaties that they wept together, a sight no one could ever have believed had they not seen it with their own eyes. Then the swift runner offered Dardan Priam food and drink, entreating him to eat and sleep in the camp before he returned to Troy bearing his best son's body.
It seemed to our hopeful eyes that the Achilles of old, before the death of Patroclus, had returned, that Achilles had perhaps begun to let the spirit of his best friend rest in his heart. With Achilles no longer lusting for death, and the best of the Trojans defeated, we began to hope that that finally great Troy could be brought low. We dreamed at night of our soft wives and fine sons while Achilles held back the army as the Trojans buried Hector. Surely, we thought, with the death of Hector, Troy's doom is sealed! Our ten years of war must soon be over! And everywhere men shifted in their sleep, dreaming of the shores of Pythia and families dear to heart. Yet such happiness was to be only in dreams. After the Trojans finished their burial ceremonies, the battle was joined again, and we Myrmidons, as all Argives, were filled with the fighting fire in hopes of soon toppling great Troy. And then Achilles died. He went down without a warning, fighting by the sides of towering Telamonian Ajax and Odysseus of Ithaca. An arrow struck him, fired cowardly from behind the tall walls. No one would dare face him on the field and meet his eyes, so our great leader was killed by an arrow from a coward behind the walls of his own city! For days before godlike Achilles' funeral we Myrmidons stood in shock. Who could believe it?
Our great leader is gone, and with him our dreams, of the sack of Troy and our glorious return to our wives and sons in Pythia. Perhaps the gods never intended Troy to fall, and if so, for what have we fought, for what have we bled and died, these ten years with our black ships beached at Troy? Glory? Spoils? True, spoils we gained aplenty, but then, spoils also were Achilles' curse. And what glory can truly be gained from ten years of sacking small neighboring cities, and battling the Trojans in front of Ilium's god-built walls? Our true prize still has not been won. Troy's walls still stand, and radiant Helen still shares her bed with the treacherous Paris son of Priam. Only once did we nearly manage to scale the high walls of the city, and for our recklessness we paid dearly in blood. Now the greatest of the Argives is gone to the halls of the dead, and with him, in a fit of jealousy, towering Telamonian Ajax, dead by his own hand. It is small consolation to we grieving Myrmidons that the Trojans too have suffered the losses of great heroes. Gone is Hector lord of the war cry, sent to the House of the Dead by Achilles hand, and Sarpedon son of Zeus. Pandarus the archer is gone and Aeneas son of the goddess is spirited away by his deathless mother. Yet the Trojans have their great walls to shield them, and if we Argives slip our ships from the sands and sail away, they've won it all. But we, we've won nothing but death everywhere, heroes and commoners alike, and bloody spoils that take the places in our tents of friends sent down across the river Styx.
We will never be able to forget the horror, the cries of death of our comrades and foes alike, and perhaps that is what the gods seated high on Mount Olympus desire. Perhaps only the memory of how men struggled and died on the plains of Troy is necessary to us, and indeed that is all we will take to us to the House of Death when it is our turn, either here at Troy or safe home in Pythia. Perhaps Troy will never fall. Indeed, those who died and will die here before whatever end there is to the war will never know nor care whether she falls or not. The task of the living is to remember the dead and dying; to burn their funeral pyres and bury their bones. Perhaps generations from now the struggle at Troy will be forgotten, eclipsed by a still greater war yet to come. Yet to those living now, war is the only reality, and so it will be until our death or the final end to everything. As we watch the ashes of Achilles' funeral pyre smolder in the light of early dawn, there is only one thought in each soldier's mind: what can we do now? When will this hell end?
1 No End in Sight
Creative Writing Project
By Abby Cook
Professor Brown
The Culture of War
Flames burned wine-soaked wood to ashes in the light of early dawn, yet not one of us was sleeping. Perhaps the gods intended it all to end in flames, just as it began in flames-- those of the illicit lust of Paris for another's wife, that Helen hell-to-men. Yet the will of the gods was as murky as a river in flood to all of us who still lived to watch the funeral fires of the hope of the Argives smolder in the predawn light. The great Achilles, swift-footed son of Peleus, loved by the gods, is dead. As clear as our purpose was to us in the beginning, to win glory for Achilles as his fierce Myrmidons, and to win the return of Helen to Menelaus with the fall of Troy, so now we, the fiercest of the Argives, cannot see now what we must do.
As we look back, seeing memories of the golden Achilles in the glowing embers of his pyre, perhaps we can all say we saw his end coming. Certainly we knew he cared not about living after ..his death. And for him who cares not about living, the gods have little will to spare his life, and usually send him quickly to Hades' land. Achilles' actions shocked even us, Achilles' troop of elite, when Patroclus died. Our leader lived only for the death of Hector; it was as if he had become a god of pain and death himself. He spared no one, not even those he had ransomed before, risking the ire of the gods to smash the brains of those who grasped his knees in supplication. Even the river Scamander on the Trojan plain was choked with the blood of those Peleus' son slew, the god of the flowing water crying out in horror at the gore.
With the death of Patroclus began the death of Achilles. Yet it cannot be explained by only the fact of one friend's death, can it? All of us, all of those who fought at Troy, knew death firsthand. We'd all seen friends go down crying out for kin, and all of us had slain men in blood with our spears or our swords and seen them scream in pain. We Myrmidons were the wolves of Achilles, and we knew death best. We hungered for battle and blood, for the spoils of war. Every day we took the field knowing that day might be our day to die. Yet we gloried in that. Weren't we the best of the Argives, brought by Achilles the great in fifty black ships from Pythia's shores? The goddess' son chose us, we'd exult to each other amid bowls of mixed wine around the night's campfires. We got the best of the spoils, slew the most of the enemy, we knew it, and we thirsted for more. When Achilles was slighted by Agamemnon, he raged against the king for days, refusing to join battle again until our own ships burned at Trojan hands. This was for us perhaps the only time our loyalties to the son of the sea goddess were tested. There was hardly a man among us who didn't murmur bitterly around the fires that perhaps Thetis nursed her son on gall, that he was so hard-hearted as to keep his soldiers 'round the fires and away from the glory that we knew was surely our right. Yet Achilles would not be moved by our mutterings. Only the greathearted Patroclus was able to sway him toward pity with his tears.
Patroclus was different from the rest from the beginning. Brought up with Achilles from childhood, his heart was less on the fighting than on the fighters. We revered him for his kind heart, for he made his rounds through the tents of the wounded at the end of each day's fighting. He'd offer a word of comfort, a warm story to lift the heart, and a steady hand to help the healer as they pressed bandages to a wound to staunch the flow of black blood. Perhaps we revered his kind heart because we couldn't understand it. How could someone remain so kind after all those years of fighting? We didn't know. We bragged around the fires about how many we'd slain that day, the spoils that the heroes had brought in to camp, and tried not to become too close to those we sat next to, for who knew who would be the next to die? Patroclus was different. He balanced our glorious leader perfectly, as the steady hand on the reins of a fractious young colt. His compassion was such that he couldn't bear to watch fellow Argives die at Hector's hand by the black ships, and, dauntlessly he went into battle dressed in Achilles' own armor to hold the Trojans off the ships in their rampage. His compassion in the camp was his greatest feature, yet not a one could say he ever shied from battle. Indeed, donning Achilles' armor seemed to give him a skill and ferocity approaching that of Achilles, and when he died, we mourned him more than we would any other.
Yet perhaps the beginning of Achilles' death goes back farther than the death of Patroclus. It was whispered among the rank and file that in addition to being the son of a deathless goddess, Achilles alone among mortal men had the chance to choose when his thread would be cut by the three Fates, and his soul sent down to Queen Persephone's dark realm. Some said he'd been offered two choices: one, to live a long and happy life, yet live unknown and die an unsung old man; the other, to live a short life, yet be known forever for his bravery and glory in battle. To those who saw his fury at Troy, it was obvious which path he'd chosen, if indeed he had been offered the choice at all. Truly, it seems, no one could support such fury inside their body as showed Achilles, and still live. His rage was so great it daunted even those on his own side, and he seemed almost a thing inhuman, covered in the gore of those he'd slain.
And Hector, how Achilles' raged for his death. When he finally closed the distance between them and prepared for their fight, even great Hector's courage failed him and he fled. Yet Achilles chased him three times round the walls of Ilium, with a speed and stamina almost immortal. Indeed it seemed as if each of the pair had one of the deathless gods at their heels, so fast did they sprint around the city of Priam. So stunned was the entire army by the display of their prowess, that they drew back to watch as Achilles battled Hector and struck the hero down, in their awe forgetting the spoils of those already killed. When the great breaker of horses fell, all crowded around to stab his body, as if we could not believe he was dead. All of us exulted in his downfall, bragging that he didn't look like much with his body face down in the dirt and his armor in the hands of Achilles. Yet still Achilles' rage lingered, and even when the man he had so hated was dead, he swore he would not forget Patroclus' death. For twelve days he dragged Hector's body behind his chariot, around and around his dear friend's funeral pyre, the once great hero naked in the dust behind Achilles' chariot wheels. No entreaties would move him, not even the horror of his own troops, stunned by his brutality, and when Priam came to beg a ransom for his son's body, there were even some of us who thought he'd strike the old man down as well, and have his revenge on the entire line of Ilium.
Perhaps the ghost of greathearted Patroclus was the one who finally persuaded him to listen to a broken man's pleas, released by some god from the underworld to spirit his way to Achilles' side once more. Indeed Priam must have been spirited into Achilles' tent by a deathless god, for none saw the old king enter or leave our camp. Those who were inside the tent of our leader say that Achilles' was so moved by old Priam's entreaties that they wept together, a sight no one could ever have believed had they not seen it with their own eyes. Then the swift runner offered Dardan Priam food and drink, entreating him to eat and sleep in the camp before he returned to Troy bearing his best son's body.
It seemed to our hopeful eyes that the Achilles of old, before the death of Patroclus, had returned, that Achilles had perhaps begun to let the spirit of his best friend rest in his heart. With Achilles no longer lusting for death, and the best of the Trojans defeated, we began to hope that that finally great Troy could be brought low. We dreamed at night of our soft wives and fine sons while Achilles held back the army as the Trojans buried Hector. Surely, we thought, with the death of Hector, Troy's doom is sealed! Our ten years of war must soon be over! And everywhere men shifted in their sleep, dreaming of the shores of Pythia and families dear to heart. Yet such happiness was to be only in dreams. After the Trojans finished their burial ceremonies, the battle was joined again, and we Myrmidons, as all Argives, were filled with the fighting fire in hopes of soon toppling great Troy. And then Achilles died. He went down without a warning, fighting by the sides of towering Telamonian Ajax and Odysseus of Ithaca. An arrow struck him, fired cowardly from behind the tall walls. No one would dare face him on the field and meet his eyes, so our great leader was killed by an arrow from a coward behind the walls of his own city! For days before godlike Achilles' funeral we Myrmidons stood in shock. Who could believe it?
Our great leader is gone, and with him our dreams, of the sack of Troy and our glorious return to our wives and sons in Pythia. Perhaps the gods never intended Troy to fall, and if so, for what have we fought, for what have we bled and died, these ten years with our black ships beached at Troy? Glory? Spoils? True, spoils we gained aplenty, but then, spoils also were Achilles' curse. And what glory can truly be gained from ten years of sacking small neighboring cities, and battling the Trojans in front of Ilium's god-built walls? Our true prize still has not been won. Troy's walls still stand, and radiant Helen still shares her bed with the treacherous Paris son of Priam. Only once did we nearly manage to scale the high walls of the city, and for our recklessness we paid dearly in blood. Now the greatest of the Argives is gone to the halls of the dead, and with him, in a fit of jealousy, towering Telamonian Ajax, dead by his own hand. It is small consolation to we grieving Myrmidons that the Trojans too have suffered the losses of great heroes. Gone is Hector lord of the war cry, sent to the House of the Dead by Achilles hand, and Sarpedon son of Zeus. Pandarus the archer is gone and Aeneas son of the goddess is spirited away by his deathless mother. Yet the Trojans have their great walls to shield them, and if we Argives slip our ships from the sands and sail away, they've won it all. But we, we've won nothing but death everywhere, heroes and commoners alike, and bloody spoils that take the places in our tents of friends sent down across the river Styx.
We will never be able to forget the horror, the cries of death of our comrades and foes alike, and perhaps that is what the gods seated high on Mount Olympus desire. Perhaps only the memory of how men struggled and died on the plains of Troy is necessary to us, and indeed that is all we will take to us to the House of Death when it is our turn, either here at Troy or safe home in Pythia. Perhaps Troy will never fall. Indeed, those who died and will die here before whatever end there is to the war will never know nor care whether she falls or not. The task of the living is to remember the dead and dying; to burn their funeral pyres and bury their bones. Perhaps generations from now the struggle at Troy will be forgotten, eclipsed by a still greater war yet to come. Yet to those living now, war is the only reality, and so it will be until our death or the final end to everything. As we watch the ashes of Achilles' funeral pyre smolder in the light of early dawn, there is only one thought in each soldier's mind: what can we do now? When will this hell end?
1 No End in Sight
Creative Writing Project
By Abby Cook
Professor Brown
The Culture of War